


Haute Cuisine

by Limes_Parton



Series: Chef de Cuisine and his Communard [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Copycat - Freeform, Gore, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Light BDSM, M/M, Murder, Platonic BDSM, Serial Killers, Sex, Teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:14:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27513667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limes_Parton/pseuds/Limes_Parton
Summary: Part 2 of the "Chef de Cuisine and his Communard" Series.A copycat killer  is trying to get Hannibal to come out and play. Will prevents that, because he likes his boyfriend unharmed and in one piece. And preferably out of jail.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Chef de Cuisine and his Communard [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010571
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. Hors d'oevre

Will really had a strange relationship with life in general. He was simultaneously high as a kite and so deep into the darkest pit of his depression that a thousand suns couldn’t reach him.  
He really wanted to laugh, when he first saw the pictures. Very amused and turned on. Absolutely inappropriate, naturally, but the hysteria just kept bubbling up in him.  
He and Hannibal are a couple know. Officially.  
The Chesapeake Ripper basked in Will’s love and wrapped up in emotional safety hadn’t murdered in six months. But here he is, standing in a foul-smelling mix of blood and excrements. This time, the ripper has really taken his time. The waste is formed into a snake, crawling up the leg of its victim.  
The blood is precisely spilled, well, spilled isn’t the right word. Applied. Used.  
Red ink used to draw a tree with apples on nearly every branch. The victim, naked, has one hand stretched out for one of the apples. It looks pretty realistic. Will suspects that the Ripper-rip-off (his hysteria won’t let him not see the hilarity in this situation) used different chemicals to stop the blood from clotting and oxidising. The different shades of red can’t be pure accident.  
It should be disgusting but, on some level, Will is mesmerized by the sheer creativity and cruel beauty of the picture. The victim seems to be sleeping, if the deathly grey-ish pallor isn’t taken into account.  
It could be a stained-glass window in a church. The red representing the sin and the white skin the yet unmarred, unblemished human consciousness, just before the hotbed of sin.  
The snake crawling between the victim’s legs, sexual, sensual, ready to tempt and entice…  
And that is exactly what this copy-cat wants. This is a challenge. A calling card for the original ripper.  
“Can I tempt you?”, seems to be what the killer wants to convey and the recipient of said message is Hannibal.  
Will is torn between helping the investigation and the need to protect his boyfriend. Will scoffs internally. Boyfriend sounds like a weak, soft word for Hannibal. It sounds plain wrong, but Will has not yet found a word that describes Hannibal or his relationship to him in its entirety. He probably never will. Also; since when did these thoughts enter into his head? He had drawn clear lines, and this wasn’t even close to one of them.  
Will lets out a breath and describes what he sees and feels.  
“The killer drugged her, just enough to make her pliant but still conscious. A drug that causes paralysis, but let’s the victim feel everything. The use of drugs this way indicates a physically weaker killer. Small man or maybe a woman. The scene wasn’t pre planned down to the smallest detail and the coupe-de-etat is the message. The blood apple, representing sin, quite literally asking ‘Can I tempt you into spilling some blood.’ Is asking the real Chesapeake Ripper for a show off. The victim was a victim of opportunity most likely. No personal connection whatsoever.  
The killer also has medical knowledge, the different shades of red clearly indicate so. The victim suffered, but not in a way that the killer could obviously enjoy. I’m very sure this is a copy-cat, an admirer of sorts. It could also be an accomplice, asking the Ripper for a second rendezvous, but these types of people, controlling, thinking of themselves as god-like, work with others so poorly that I doubt it. -“ Will took a breath, but stopped talking. Jack stepped up to him but didn’t pressure him into anything.  
Nobody else says anything, but Will sees their frustration, partly directed at him for saying what they feared themselves, partly for the helplessness in the face of two killers. Two rippers, exacting and cool headed. The hardest kind to stop because they are nearly impossible to identify and arrest. 

When Will comes home, Hannibal has set the table, has cooked – if Will is interpreting the smell right – and has the TV on.  
If Hannibal is surprised by Will falling down on his knees in front of him, pressing his head to Hannibal’s stomach, he doesn’t show it. However, he does shift his wineglass from his right to his left hand and starts to card through Wills hair with his right.  
Will relishes this. The assurance, the safety, the sheer abundance of freedom he has when it comes to Hannibal. He can behave like he want’s to, no restraints, totally judgment free.  
It is glorious.  
After Wills knees have gone numb and he loosened his hold from Hannibal’s waist to a normal, comfortable cuddling level as opposed to the iron grip he had after stumbling through the door, Hannibal lifts his chin with his hand.  
They look at each other.  
“What got you into such a state, my delectable sweetling?”  
Will shivers. He can’t help himself. Hannibal speaking already draws him in, but Hannibal saying pet names touches him somewhere deep inside.  
Will knows he has to explain, but he doesn’t want to right now. He wants to be held and cuddled and loved.  
So he tells Hannibal exactly that. And Hannibal delivers. He manoeuvres Will onto the couch and settles him against himself. His wineglass migrates to the coffee table in front of the couch and the TV is turned off.  
Hannibal massages his scalp, his neck, his shoulders and talks about unimportant things like his shopping, the old lady who wanted to master the self-checkout-machine but had some difficulties with it… It’s a stream of inconsequential things without deeper meaning or emotional attachment. Will lets it wash over himself. It is a neutral, between a base and an acid. A pallet cleanser after something particularly strong.  
For his overdriven empathy, a neutral like this amounts to selfcare, nice and relaxing.  
Hannibal gets up and coaxes Will to stand. It’s nice to not have to feel anything. To not have to decide anything. Will let’s himself fall and drift off. Hannibal directs him onto a seat and fills his plate and glass.  
Will hadn’t even noticed Hannibal getting his wineglass from the coffee table in the living room.  
His plate is filled with stew and two toasted pieces of bread, a white creamy dollop proudly sitting on the little stew-mountain, slowly running down it’s sides.  
He doesn’t have to decide anything. Hannibal takes care of all of these things.  
Will knows how dangerous Hannibal is. He knows that Hannibal could easily overpower him. But he knows he won’t. Not only because he loves Will. That would never be enough for the personality Hannibal has developed over the years.  
Hannibal switched from controlling someone’s life through ending it to controlling someone’s by directing it. It is a very similar concept and, as far as Will can tell, nearly equally as rewarding, but with very dissimilar outcomes. 

Will eats and tastes and moans. Food he doesn’t have to prepare always hold’s a higher status in his mind because it doesn’t cost him any time, thought or effort. But ‘good’ tasting food he didn’t have to prepare? Absolutely amazing. Hannibal’s food? A wondrous marvel of culinary delights. 

They eat and Will sips at his wine while Hannibal clears up the table. Will helps with the household stuff, like washing and drying laundry, ironing and starching Hannibal’s tailored clothing. The smell of washing powder alone calms him down. But the kitchen is Hannibal’s domain and Will isn’t touching anything.  
The only addition to Hannibal in his house, besides clothing and associated items is a Roomba. Dusting is just too much of a hassle to do, if you ask Hannibal. The lazy fucker even installed a special hatch so that no guest at his house would ever notice the Roomba.  
It gave the impression of Hannibal having at least one servant and a cleaning lady, instead he had three roomba’s, one on each floor and one household lady for the rest. And she came only once a week on Friday mornings for laundry and cleaning.  
Will smiles. He loves this lazy and exacting murderer to pieces. Which he would never tell him because of the obvious puns neither off them would make. But they’d smirk knowingly at each other.  
The wineglass is taken out of his hand, empty now, and Hannibal presses a lazy, slow kiss to his lips. Just one set of lips on another. Languid.  
Hannibal sets the glass in the sink and holds a hand out to Will who takes it. Hannibal leads the way up the stairs and into the bedroom. He strips Will bare, loosens his shirt collar and directs Will into the en-suite bathroom. He instructs Will to sit down in the bathtub and tests the water with his hands. Once it has reached an acceptable temperature, he holds the spray over Wills body. He moves the spray down his arms and down his back, over his head and down his front. It’s basically a water massage, till he pushes the handle of the spray in its fixture at the wall and started using soap. He washes and shampooes Will from top to bottom, even cleaning between his toes which makes Will giggle. The side of Hannibal who doesn’t care if he gets foam on his shirt is the best of them all, in Will’s opinion. Sometimes, in his best moments, Will could even imagine having a family with Hannibal. Kids being bathed by papa Hannibal and going fishing with daddy Will… pleasant daydreams.  
Then the water massage comes back closely followed by a second, albeit drying towel massage.  
Will is led back into the bedroom where he is manoeuvred into pyjamas and laid down. A fluffy blanket is spread over him and the last thing he sees before his eyes droop shut is Hannibal’s magnificent body being undressed and clad in silken pyjamas. The sexy image follows him into his dreams.


	2. Plat principal

When Will woke up, it was a beautiful sunny winter morning. The house was surrounded by white and the world seemed to be quiet. All in all, it seemed like the perfect day to wake up to.   
That is, till he looked at his phone and saw a text message from Jack. ‘Teeth? found in Oesophagus.’ And an attached picture. It was a small white thing that looked like a human child’s tooth.   
He texts back. ‘Was wrong maybe? Original Ripper showing off that he can improvise just as much.’  
He had written the text still half asleep, but now he casts his mind back. He actually doesn’t know how many people Hannibal has killed. He knows about six murders, two of which Hannibal didn’t commit because he was in Wills bed, practically doing porno, even if he didn’t know it.   
He didn’t know who committed the other two murders and they had enough similar characteristics for everyone else to think that the Chesapeake Ripper had done it. Maybe, someone had already been the Chesapeake Ripper before Hannibal came on the scene, or Hannibal was used as a scapegoat. He had murdered, even if it was less than many people would like to think, but still, if the Ripper murdering now got arrested, they would be able to point them to Hannibal and get free, or at least a reduced sentence.   
His hindbrain had probably already thought of all of this and had already come to the conclusion he was coming to know: Hannibal was a murderer, but not the Chesapeake Ripper. At least not alone. The myth based upon two people. 

Will stumbled out of the bed, into sweats and jumper, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Hannibal was standing at the counter, doing something with flour. Will looked around frantically, stuck his head into the living room and hallway before turning to Hannibal and asking in gasping breaths: “How many people have you killed?”  
Hannibal’s hands stilled. He looked from his Hands to Wills, slowly wandering upwards. He studied Will’s face for one long moment, before turning around and placing something on the baking tray that rested on the stove.   
“Did your nightmares about my deeds finally catch up with you?”   
Will stared at Hannibal’s back. His mind was filled with question marks and error Numbers.   
Instead of trying to understand what Hannibal had really asked him, his brain to occupied with the task at hand he just hugged Hannibal from behind and pressed a kiss to his neck. He needed to get on his toes a little for that.   
“How many people have you killed, Darling?”, he whispered in Hannibal’s ear and was rewarded with a shiver. He didn’t often play this part in their relationship, the part were he was so loved by Hannibal that he could bring the other man to do anything for him with a flick of his tongue or a whisper in his ear. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable to or that the effect didn’t exist. 

Hannibal shivered again when Will bit a little into the tendons connecting shoulder and neck. Will moved his hands up and down, stroking Hannibal’s hips, massaging a little with his thumbs.   
“The number and dates, if you please.”, he whispered in Hannibal’s other ear just as he let one hand stray downwards to Hannibal’s upper thigh. He had meant to only find Hannibal’s leg but as luck would have it, a different part of Hannibal had already reacted to Wills ministrations and had inflated, lying flush atop the trouser clad leg.   
Will ghosted over it with his fingers and stroked along it, using his fingernails a little to intensify the feeling through the cloth.   
“Come on Hannibal, you want me to know, don’t you?”   
Hannibal turned around abruptly and pressed Will back against the counter. Hannibal didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. He just looked at Will.   
Will looked him directly in the eyes. “I need to know.”   
Hannibal and Will looked at each other. Will didn’t know what Hannibal was looking for but he has no problem with looking at him, being open about his desire to know.   
“Eight people. Three in Europe. The one who killed my sister, the cop who knew who the guy was beforehand and didn’t do anything and the cop who let himself be bribed to keep quiet about my sister. The four you found in the woods used as Mushroomfarms. They were whores who told another killer, one of my patients, where to find the most vulnerable, youngest woman. The woman that landed on the antlers campaigned in front of the bakery I go to against birth control. She annoyed me.”  
Will is horrified and fascinated, which is nearly always the case when Hannibal tells him something.   
So Will forces himself to focus on what he wanted with the information instead of how happy and gleeful Hannibal feels. Eight victims is considerably less than what he expected and more than he hoped. But three of those happened in Europe, so five murders in the US. The Chesapeake Ripper has twenty-two attributed to him right now.   
“Wait a second, you knew we were chasing a copycat! You knew! You asshole! Why didn’t you tell me?!”, Will pushes Hannibal back. What the fuck. Messing with his brain by not telling him that he was sick was one thing but messing with his work is a totally different ballpark. This wounds his professional pride.   
He knows that hitting Hannibal won’t really hurt him. But Will is smart and knows exactly what he needs to do to make Hannibal grovel. He hasn’t tried it yet, but he is very, very sure that it will work. He turns to the cupboard and takes out a brown apothecary glass flask. Hannibal looks at him curiously. He goes to the fridge and takes out milk. Then he goes to the coffee carafe and quickly dumps milk and a little of the content of the brown flask into it.   
He sets milk and flask aside and takes a mug. The kitchen fills with a faint cinnamon and nutmeg smell. Hannibal’s eyes widen. “You didn’t.”, he says. Will narrows his eyes. “Sure did honey bear.”  
Will knows that Hannibal knows that he can feel his discomfort, both at pumpkin spice late and the pet name. The fact that Will accepts feeling the embarrassment and discomfort Hannibal is radiating should tell the man that Will really is upset.   
Hannibal doesn’t flinch or voice his anger though. Will carefully waves with the carafe and turns to leave the kitchen. “I’m going back to bed. And I’m taking the coffee hostage, in case that wasn’t clear.”  
Upstairs, he fills the mug with coffee. It really tastes good, even if Pumpkin Spice dollops are floating on the surface.   
He reads his book about witches and ritual killings in the twentieth century and drinks half the cup before he falls asleep again. His dreams are not filled with burning witches though, because witches apparently turned largely away from black magic during the Renaissance (when else?) and moved toward better, less attention drawing rituals.   
The book does explain why serial killers become obsessed with supposedly satanic symbols and rituals and why their psychic clings to them so much.   
His dreams change into a coven of witches dancing around him, sprinkling him with flower and blessed water that smells like… chocolate? He slowly wakes up. On the bedside table sits a plate with two tiny glass bowls filled with red and yellow jam and several croissants, some of them obviously filled with chocolate. Hannibal has drawn the covers over Wills right leg and has pulled his own blanket over Wills left. He’s lying in between and giving Will a blowjob. Will smirks and grabs the plate.   
Maybe he should do this more often. 

Going back to work on Monday seems like torture. He doesn’t want to stop being pampered by Hannibal. He needs all the pampering! Even though his behind might need a reprieve, if he’s being honest with himself.   
But he goes to work to look at the tooth they have found. Maybe it’s from a child that was somehow important to the Copy Cat Ripper, as Will has now decided to call him.   
In all honesty, the Copy Cat Ripper is likely the real Chesapeake Ripper, making Hannibal the fake one, but explaining that twist and bend logically to his co-workers (mainly Jack, well, only Jack, the others have stopped asking) is pretty much impossible.   
So he goes into work and looks at the fotos and tries not to be horribly sick every time the feelings of the victims or the killer overwhelm him. Jack notices that he is more sensitive than usually, but Will just shrugs with his shoulders.   
He knows that he is probably more sensitive to negative emotions now, that he was wrapped up in the deep, feral love and assurance of his beloved killer for more than forty-eight hours. He knows that that is beyond fucked up, that he feels a killers emotions better, more accurately at work because he cuddles with another killer on his couch pretty much every evening but he simply doesn’t care.   
He examines the tooth very closely. The pathologists have already determined that it isn’t a tooth, but is really a pearl. A pearl shaped like a human tooth.   
It shouldn’t be surprising that even something as ‘pretty’ and ‘harmless’ as pearls can become terrifying and nightmare-inducing when formed like a human tooth and stuck in the oesophagus of a murder victim.   
Will knows that the pearl has to be something special. He can feel it. He knows that this is something important. This might be the one clue they needed to find the real Chesapeake Ripper.   
Thankfully, Will’s hobby is fishing. Fishing and searching for pearls aren’t really the same, but the online forums overlap marginally.   
So, he takes to the web and posts pictures of the pearl. He’s gotten it as a gift from another fisherman and wants to find out where he can find more. His girlfriend saw it and wants a necklace. (He hopes that Hannibal will never find out about this. He doesn’t know if he would ever life (har har) this one down.)  
Jack takes one look at the sites Will is posting and gags. The man is so stoic and fearless, or at least he’s good at pretending to be, that a full-on shudder and gag are the biggest admission of disgust Will has seen from the man till now. Big slimy fish are apparently more disgusting than crime scenes.   
He drives home, listening to Christmas music, happily seeing Hannibal’s car in the driveway. For the first time he feels a dark, gleeful feeling of sly content from himself. If he can spin this right, nobody is going to take this, Hannibal, away from him.   
He tries to banish the thought while getting out of his car and walking towards the door. As soon as the door opens, before he’s even on the porch, illuminating Hannibal with a puppy on his arm, he knows that the thought won’t go away.   
“He sat in a cardboard box around the corner of my office building.”, says Hannibal as greeting.   
Will is so fucking much in love with this man, hopefully Carl the puppy won’t be too scarred by seeing his daddies fuck on the hallway rug.   
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬It takes three days to figure out what pearl it is.   
It's a Tennessee River pearl. Those became really rare about sixty years ago when a dam was built, and the environment wasn't as conducive to mussels anymore.   
The smaller pearls were famous for looking like teeth. Even at the height of pearl producing mussel the bigger ones had been rare.   
Because they looked so macabre, no money could be made from them and the authorities allowed the locals to collect them. Since basically none could be collected anymore, the person who was leaving them now likely needed to be around sixty years old or older or would be someone who inherited them.   
That didn’t really narrow it down.   
At least, they had another indicator for when they found a suspect. They would be more likely to establish guilt if the person had a Tennessee River connection somehow.   
Jack did nod as an acknowledgement of Wills work. It was just a tiny lead, but he had followed up even if it went nowhere.

Now they were sitting around discussing several options on how the investigation should continue.   
Will looked at the crime scene photos again. What would he have done if he didn’t know about the Ripper? He needed to act like he didn’t have superior knowledge because of Hannibal.   
He put every picture away till only the face of the victim remained. 

“We already established that the victim and her family didn’t have anything to do with pearls. If I didn’t bring the Ripper into play, wouldn’t we have checked every database for murders involving pearls? Maybe break ins and such were pearls were recorded as being stolen? Pearls looking like these especially?”   
Everybody looked at him shocked.   
At this stage of the investigation he would normally be to sensitive, to involved to contribute anything useful. Hannibal’s presence as his partner had done so much for him...  
Jack cleared his throat and nodded. “It might only be for procedural accurateness, but we should do it anyway.”   
Will nodded. He didn’t think a new lead would pop up, but it didn’t hurt to try. And his newfound energy from healthy food, regular sleep and sex and emotional stability should contribute to the job, if he was omitting that he already caught a killer, right?   
Will smiled at Jack. Jack looked a little bewildered.  
Will looked at the board again. If his theory was right and the killer was asking Hannibal to come out and play, there was a small chance that the killer knew Hannibal. Not likely, but he could unravel the mystery at one more end this way. If he found anything, he could invent a way for how he found out and if he didn’t find anything, no harm done.   
The dark feeling he had had before showed up at the edges of his own, tiny emotional landscape in midst of all the others. It felt like molasses, dark, sticky temptation, trying to push him forward. It was a mixture of the exhilaration of doing something secret and forbidden and the competitive feeling of needing to figure it out. He had superior knowledge, he was cheating, in a way, so he needed (!) to figure out who this killer was as the first person to do so.   
... and he probably needs a new therapist now that his old one is also his partner. But he didn’t want to tell a new person all the shit that happened to him.   
Come to think of it, he didn’t even want to stop having therapy lessons with Hannibal. That twisted asshole had really helped him, albeit sabotaging him often at the same time.   
He shook his head a little. He could decide all of that when he wasn’t at work anymore.   
So Will drove to the university, sat down at his desk and went through all the papers someone had dumped on it.   
Why some people were still unable to send mails baffled him.  
One was a letter. No return addres. He opened it.   
“You’ll be the prettiest pearl in my collection, Honey!”   
The letters were cut out of a book, similar in style of old ransom letters with cut-out Letters from different papers and magazines.   
Will was both horrified and elated.   
Horrified because he didn’t want a killer to kill him, which he or she obviously wanted to do.   
Elated because he might have gotten a convenient way to explain his superior knowledge. He dropped the letter and called Jack.   
He had just enough time to lock down his gleeful grin before FBI Agents swarmed his and the universities post office. 

He came home with a spring in his step and a bag of organic dog treats for Carl.   
Hannibal had made coq-au-vin and they talked over dinner.  
Hannibal was unusually talkative and told Will how Carl was such a good boy, quietly lying in his basket next to Hannibal’s desk and licking clients hands when they started to cry. They wondered if he had received respective training and didn’t meet the requirements.   
Will nearly started to cry too. He could see that Hannibal, even though he wasn’t capable of the full scope of human emotions, was happy, in his own little way.   
Hannibal seemed to unfreeze, as far as that was possible. He would never have a normal humans empathy, being a sociopath/psychopath/traumatised psychologist who couldn’t trick his own mind to overcome the trauma.   
But he would at least be content, and that would have to be enough.   
Wills good mood dissipated when Jack called because of the letter.   
Sadly, the phone was loud enough for Hannibal to hear Jack in the total silence of the kitchen.   
He hadn’t told Hannibal about the letter, who didn’t pull a face or anything but still managed to look pissed off.   
Will listened to Jack explaining that the letters the letter was made out of were cut out with nail scissors out of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. Specifically: a first edition. Will thought that was a pretentious choice.   
The killer obviously wanted to flaunt something, Will just didn’t know what exactly.   
Maybe her wealth? The choice of pearls seemed rather feminine and the way of killing, with a paralyzing agent seemed to fit as well. Why display her wealth though?   
“Will? Will?”, asked Jack.   
“I heard. She is flaunting her wealth. I just don’t understand why.”  
“She?”, asked Jack.  
“Yes, I believe the killer is a female. The pearls and killing style suggest so. It also supports my theory that it isn’t the Chesapeake Ripper....”, he threw a look at Hannibal, “... but someone else.”  
Jack hummed.   
They said goodbye and Will hung up.   
Hannibal twirled the stem of the wineglass in his fingers, making the liquid slosh gently against the glass.   
Will mentally kicked himself. He should have told Hannibal first thing today. Time to do damage control.  
Will stood up; walked over to Hannibal, went onto his knees beside the chair and nudged Hannibal till he could wrap his arms around his waist. He looked up at Hannibal. “I'm sorry. I was so happy to be home, seeing you and Carl, that I totally forgot about the letter. Someone send a piece of paper with cut out letters to my office today, saying:  
“You’ll be the prettiest pearl in my collection, Honey!”  
And I called Jack so he could handle it and ... I just wanted to leave that outside the door when I came home.”  
Will pressed his face into Hannibal. Not the most comfortable position for either of them, but the best he could do right now to beg for forgiveness.   
Hannibal petted his head.   
“Carl and I will go for a walk and when we come back, I want to see you clean and naked on the bed.”   
The ‘or-else’ didn’t need to be said.   
Will shivered. Hannibal was always attractive to him but never more than in these moments. A big lazy predator, just watching, being able to outrun and overpower you in 0.4 seconds, if he decided that you were a worthy pray.   
“Yes, Sir.”, whispered Will.   
Will didn’t know when it happened, but he had settled down on some goals without noticing. He would bring down the Ripper and set him up to take the fall for Hannibal.   
And he wanted more. He wanted a save life for himself and Hannibal.   
He bought himself a calendar. He noted down his lectures and who held them if he couldn’t because of FBI involvement.   
Then he noted down the couple of sessions he and Hannibal were still having.   
It felt like taking control for the first time in his life.   
He googled marital law experts and found several in D.C..   
He also googled which houses were on offer in the area between his and Hannibal’s workplaces.   
He compared them and put together a list of links to send to Hannibal later.  
Then he looked for antiques dealers. If he offered Hannibal a ring, it would need to be something that looked natural compared to the family signet ring his beloved wore occasionally.   
He made an appointment with the lawyer and went out to look at rings. He asked them to put some aside, took pictures and he would look at them later, to make sure that his choice was the right one. He also asked the jewellers he visited for information about the pearls and left his card. If someone had bought those pearls as a macabre joke, it might have been in one of those stores. Antiques dealers were certainly more likely than a regular jeweller, due to the rare nature of said pearls.   
He had a good cover for visiting them and it might actually produce something useful.   
His good mood was ruined when he stood in the last dealership (he had made a list of six) and his phone rang. Of course, it was Jack.  
“We got another one.”   
Will hung up and send him his location with the request for someone to pick him up. He had left his car at the university, not wanting to get stuck in traffic or be unable to find parking space.   
To his surprise, Jack picked him up. “I was in the area.”, he said in lieu of a greeting.   
Will got in.   
“Antiques shop?”   
Jack, perceptive and taciturn as ever.   
Will took some deep breaths, concealing doing so by consulting his notebook/calendar.   
He explained his conclusions and what he had found out about the pearls.   
“I feel like this is the mistake we have been waiting for...It feels like... like we are hunting the real Chesapeake Ripper and not a fake one... as if we are finally closing in.”   
Jack drove steadily, but Will noticed his reaction to the thought that the copycat was in fact the real one. Jack seemed to have taken the idea, his grip tightening a little, shoulders stiffening just a fraction.   
They came to the crime scene. A Villa with a sign at the entrance proclaiming it to be a museum for a local artist.   
A second bronze plate proclaims it to be the former home of a successful businessman who traded in sugar in the 19 hundreds.   
Will can’t help himself and thinks ‘sugar and slaves too, probably.’.   
They go through the open gate and around the house on a nice white gravel path. In the back is a nice baroque style garden.   
The victim is a woman, late twenties, early thirties. She is dressed in old fashioned dress, a rectangular neckline framing her cleavage. The cloth seems heavy and is dark red lined in gold. All over the dress are pearls. The gold rim neckline is shimmering from all the pearls stitched on.  
The victim has a dagger in one hand and a green tint to her lips.   
Will sees how it happened, the paralytic again, into her neck, then draped like this. Poisoned with something and left to die on the cold, hard ground.   
The whole scene moved backwards to a club, the girl dancing, then on her way back home. A woman unconcerned by another woman trailing her. A first prick. Waking up in a room or van, being forced at gunpoint to remove her clothes and put on the red gown. Then ordered to spin around and feeling a second prick.   
He looks at the girl. There is a faint dabble of glitter left and right to her eyes, decorating her temple.   
Not really enough to base a thesis on, but he didn’t do that, he only ever told them what he saw. The team took what he described, mostly the feelings of the killer and built a profile. What he saw of the events was a combination of what the team told him before seeing the crime scene and what he himself saw.   
He concentrated on the feelings of the killer and got parts of the usual, some form of happiness, not arousal, but happiness. A lot of anger. And smugness. Almost as strong as the anger.   
He straightened himself.   
“Juliet’s killer...”, Will nearly tripped over himself, he hadn’t consciously come up with that thesis. Where had it come from?   
“... is furious. But she is kept in check by something equally as strong-" - someone in the background snorted ‘in check?!’ unbelievingly – “which is probably playful revenge or something similar. She is smug. She did this as a challenge, probably at an ex partner or another killer. It could also be a warning at an ex partner she shared her criminal hobby and had romantic feelings too.”  
One of the forensic guys asks: “Juliet?” and Will explains patiently: “The dress is in the renaissance style, she has a green substance on her lips, suggesting the poison. But in the story, there wasn’t enough poison left to kill herself, which is why she killed herself with a dagger.”  
He threw Jack a look.   
He needed Jack to come to the conclusions himself. The thoughts needed to feel original, not foreign, not from another person’s mind.   
He left and took a taxi to the university campus.   
There he went to his office and got his papers and laptop in time for his next lecture. He even managed a smile at his two office aids, one of which had been making herself ready to hold his lecture.  
The other aid remarked: “The killer is coming closer isn’t he?”  
Will had had the same thought. The killer probably knew Hannibal and that he was in a relationship. Which made the warning all the more dire: Will is ‘Romeos-Hannibal’s' love interest and the dying Juliet most likely to actually kill herself if Hannibal died. And the murders came closer and closer to the university. Thankfully, nobody had noticed.   
He wrote a text massage to Hannibal, telling him that a murder took place and if he had a Romeo and Juliet novel.   
He ended the text with: ‘ Pick me up at 6, I’ll be done by then.’. Hannibal is smart enough to pick up on the undertones. That way, they would be in two separate cars directly behind each other if something happened.   
The buddy system worked for first graders after all, so why not for them?   
He held the lecture about the discrepancy of what investigators felt and what they saw at a crime scenes and how that affected their work. The next lecture would be about avoiding those emotional traps. 

Thankfully for him, his emotional feelings and those of the killer were separate, even if he is able to feel them.   
He only got problems when the feelings bled out into his own emotional landscape.   
The feelings were weaker but still there, like a red shirt amongst white in the washing, turning everything pink. The killers bloody red rage coloured his well-balanced white landscape pink.   
But the majority of his students weren’t able to feel things like he did himself and needed to safeguard themselves.   
Of course, he compartmentalised to the extreme, making it impossible for himself to deal once his walls came down. Hannibal had that effect on him. But for now, it allowed him to shove the fear for himself and his lover into one corner and to concentrate on the room.   
After the lecture, he went into his office and collected some papers to grade. The office aids both had a similar stack at their desk, but they had already left.   
He put them in his rucksack and headed out, keys in hand.   
He wasn’t even close to the door when he heard something behind him. Turning around he saw a person rushing towards him. Black boots, black jeans, black hoodie with the hood pulled up and a black cloth over mouth and nose was the overall image Will got in the first few seconds.   
He didn’t notice the syringe till the person was a couple paces closer. He must have given a sign of noticing the weapon because the person suddenly lunged for him.   
He stepped aside, closer into the direction of the door.   
The person lunged again, this time the needle of the syringe caught Will on the cheek leaving a scratch.   
He yelped and rushed in the direction of the door. He did have his weapon on him but drawing that in an enclosed space with the possibility of the bullet ricocheting with civilians possibly running around obviously wasn’t an option. He smacked the door into the attacker’s face which seemed to buy him some time.   
The two threw punches at each other, Will trying to incapacitate her (?) while... she tried to get him to stand still for the appliance of the syringe. They stumbled put of the door together.   
The continued trying to get the upper hand, but they were at an impasse. Will was sure that he could overpower his opponent, but he didn’t even want another scratch of the syringe. Even if it was just a scratch, if she had used the plunger even a little, and if it was a highly toxic poison like Botox, he would be dead.   
He didn’t even notice the pounding feet but the click-click of a pair of Dress shoes hitting the asphalt was noticed by his attacker who managed to surprise him with an attack supposed to push him away instead of getting him closer.   
The person took of running, while Will remained standing there, panting, confused.   
That’s when he heard the sound of someone running or jogging towards him. He turned around and saw Hannibal making his way to him, a gun in hand.   
He stopped a few steps away from Will.   
“Are you okay?”, he asked, in that tone that made it clear that Hannibal was ordering him to answer.   
Will nodded.   
The syringe had dropped on the floor. Will made his way over to his car, getting gloves and the spare evidence kit he had lying around.   
Meanwhile, Hannibal was talking to Jack on the phone. Returning to the scene, they switched, Hannibal handing Will the phone and Will handing Hannibal the kit.   
Hannibal secured the cracked syringe, careful to not get anything on his fingers. Meanwhile, Will described the attacker and the attack. Not that he had much to tell, but he had noted a few strands of hair (blond) and eye colour (blue). It wasn’t much but amongst the 300+ million Americans, it at least eliminated most of Asian or African descend. 

His description also eliminated men, everyone below the age of 25 or above 45.   
“If this really is the Chesapeake Ripper than you got us closer than anyone before.”, Jack said before hanging up. 

Will wasn’t really sure it he could pull it off, especially if more or less all the evidence came from him or Hannibal. If the Ripper was found, he would be charged with 23 murders. In exchange for some amenities in prison, the ripper could lay at least 5 at Hannibal’s feet. That didn’t just bring down the Rippers own murder count to 18, it had several implications. Any narrative the defence counsel would set up along the lines of “you have the wrong person” would get credibility in the eyes of the jury. The whole tale Will had spun would be turned against him and Hannibal would take the fall.   
They had to wait till the forensic team got to them and by the time they could go it was late and the traffic had died down. A nearly one-hour drive seemed too long anyway, which resulted in them driving to Hannibal ‘s instead.   
Hannibal lost his tie and jacket folded up his sleeves and threw together leftovers and spices that smelled exotic and mouth watering.   
Their little puppy was happily running around, having had the time of his life on campus as Hannibal and him waited for Will. 

While Hannibal prepared dinner, Will made his way through the house, gun drawn. He let Carl back in and locked the door. They ate and secured the house again in silence. Hannibal was angry about the attack but couldn’t blame anyone. (He obviously blamed the attacker, but she was unreachable at the moment.)   
Will was frustrated that he hadn’t gotten the facemask of the attacker off or had gotten anything else. The attack had been a perfect opportunity to get to know the enemy, and he had frozen like the idiot he was.   
They went to bed, sound asleep. 

The next day started with Will getting kissed by Hannibal, the bigger man pressed feet till hip against him, propped up by his arms, head bowed down to kiss Will awake.   
They made love, no fetish, no kinks involved. Will knew exactly how Hannibal felt: frustrated, helpless, afraid of loosing Will.  
Feelings that scared Hannibal, who hadn’t cared for someone in a way that would result in those feelings in a loooong time.   
Driven by the fear of loosing each other, they had the most intense coupling each of them had ever experienced.   
Having had such a wakeup call, Will wasn’t surprised to see it all go to hell in a handbasket very fast.   
He had just gotten in the range of DC, sipping on the to- go cup of coffee Hannibal had pushed into his hand on his way out, when his phone rang.   
“Will Graham speaking.”  
A female voice answered. “Mr. Graham? Jennifer of Willson Antiques and Jewellery. My boss told me to call you, someone asked for special pearls...”   
Will interrupted her: “Stall her. I'll be there.” And hung up.   
He dialled Jacks number and took the next turn.  
“Willson Antiques and Jewellery. I'm not sure if it's her but they just called about the pearls. I'm on my way there.”  
Jack talked to someone in the background, then talked clearly to Will.   
“Wait for backup. ETA 15 Minutes.”  
Apparently, Jack had been on his way to work too if he could be there this fast.   
Will drove faster but the closer he came to the shop the more thoughts raced through his head.  
He needed witnesses if he arrested her. If it was her, she would recognise him and flee. If he came into the shop to corner her she had at least two potential hostages, the store owner and the girl who had called him. He drove be the store, turned and had parked just as his phone rang.   
“Where are you?”, asked Jack  
“Parked about a hundred meters away from the store. If it is her, she'll recognise me and know that something's up.”   
Jack grunted his agreement.   
“Drive to university. We'll go in.” Will turned the key and put in the gear one handed.   
“She has at least two potential hostages. Maybe let her get out and catch her outside.”  
Jack shouted orders in the background.   
Will hung up.


	3. Dessert

He had never suspected this kind of outcome. Will checked the unfamiliar suit he was wearing. He nervously checked the inside pocket for the heavy gold circlet again. He had had to sell a signed edition of a book for this, because he couldn’t risk Hannibal seeing one of his bank statements. He grinned to himself. He had a collector’s edition of the same book, signed and numbered, inside an old cheap English- French vocabulary book where he had cut out the middle.  
All the cloak and dagger spiel was worth it if he managed to surprise Hannibal.   
Hannibal came in and lent at the doorframe. A dark grey suit paired with a dark green button up. He looked like a model. From his cognac leather dress shoes to his perfectly styled hair.   
Will wanted to go on his knees for this man in more ways than the one he had planned for this evening.   
“Shall we?” asked Hannibal and Will gave him a small smile.   
They left the bathroom and made their way along the corridor, lined with Greek-styled marble columns, designed to impress and install respect in everyone walking these halls.   
Hannibal held the door for him to courtroom eight, written as VIII of course, and the two stepped inside.   
Hannibal took his seat in the back and Will went back to his seat behind the prosecution, next to Jacks place. Jack was already sitting there, disposable coffee in hand.   
They talked quietly for a few minutes, till the judge appeared and sat down.   
He banged his gavel three times. “I call this court to order. We are going continuing this hearing with testimony from Mister Graham, consultant for the FBI. Mr Graham, please step forward.”  
Will got up and walked to the witness stand. “Your Honour.”, he said in greeting.   
The judge, a black woman with white, coarse short hair looked down on him.   
“Mr. Graham, please tell us in your own words when you first suspected Ms Du Maurier was the Chesapeake Ripper.”  
Will looked at Bedelia shortly. Pure hatred spewed out of her every pore. If she wasn’t insane now, it wouldn’t take much, Jacks testimony before had already enraged her.  
“I never suspected her, your honour. I just suspected a female, between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five, with affluent financials, well-educated and Caucasian.”  
The judge looked down on him without changing her facial expression.  
“Then explain the events of the 24th please.”  
Will nodded. “I was called by a shop assistant. I had visited the shop previously for information about Tennessee pearls. I also asked every shop I could find to inform us if someone asked for these pearls or if someone wanted to purchase them.   
I was already on my way to work and contacted Mr Crawford en-route. We decided that my presence would be a hindrance, which is why I drove to work.   
I only gained knowledge of the identity of our suspect on the evening of the twenty-fourth when I visited the FBI Laboratory after work.”  
The judge nodded.   
“When were you convinced that you had the right person?”  
“When I saw the interrogation tape. Serial killers often try to insert themselves into the investigation, it is one of the ways they are caught most often. Ms Du Maurier is smarter than other serial killers and didn’t insert herself into the investigation directly, she merely got close to my partner, gleaning some insight into the investigation through my partner via me- “  
“You whore took him from me. It was supposed to be us! We were supposed to do this together! Not you and him. Never you two!”  
Bedelia didn’t scream or look enraged. She looked as calm as ever. She looked like a normal, reasonable, very composed person would look in a factual argument.   
Will had to check himself not to smirk.   
“If I may respond your honour?”   
He didn’t look at Bedelia, ignored her entirely.   
“Ms Du Maurier believes that she has had some sort of relationship with my Partner, Mr. Lecter. How this delusion- “Bedelia started refuting this “-came to be is beyond me. As I said, she got to know from my partner how stressed I was and tried to deduce the state of the investigation from this.”  
The judge nodded but didn’t change her expression.   
“It was suggested that Ms Du Maurier has had a partner in her crimes. Therefore, I feel compelled to ask: Why are you so convinced that Mr Lecter and Ms Du Maurier didn’t have an affair?”  
Will smiled shyly at the judge.   
“Because Hannibal has a very well documented sexual history. And he is very much gay.”  
Bedelia lost most of her composure and started shrieking. It sounded like music in Will’s ears. He turned around to look at Hannibal. The gorgeous man he would be proposing to tonight.   
Hannibal’s face was stony and neutral, just like the judges. But his eyes sparkled with mirth.   
Will turned around and patted his suit jacket for the reassuring feeling of the ring.   
This day would be the first of many.  
The crime novel turned love story.


End file.
